Motor vehicles include seat assemblies for supporting occupants within an interior passenger compartment. It is known to provide seat assemblies with pivoting seat backs, which fold from a generally vertical seated position to a generally horizontal stowed position to increase the cargo carrying capacity of the motor vehicle. In previously known seat assemblies, carrier assemblies have been used as an intermediate between the pivoting seat back and the floor of the motor vehicle.
The carrier assembly is secured to the floor of the motor vehicle and then the seat back is pivotally mounted to the carrier assembly. However, these previously known carrier assemblies are attached not only to the floor of the motor vehicle but also to additional structures of the seat assembly such as a seat cushion frame, and/or a locking frame. The seat cushion frame being the structure that attaches the seat cushion to the motor vehicle, while the locking frame mounts a locking mechanism which releasably locks the seat back in the generally vertical seated position.
If the carrier assembly is attached to the additional structures prior to its installation into the motor vehicle, the resulting assembly is a large, heavy and cumbersome structure which requires increased amounts of time and labor to properly align and install. However, attaching the carrier assembly to the additional structures after it has been installed into the motor vehicle requires tedious, labor intensive process in a confined space. Therefore, these additional connections, whether prior to the carrier assembly being installed in the vehicle or after, are time and labor consuming and result in an installation process that is costly and inefficient.
In addition, several seat assembly accessories are required to be installed to complete the seat assembly. The separate attachment of these accessories increases the amount of labor and time required to install the seat assembly.
Thus, there exists a need for a carrier assembly, having pre-attached seat assembly accessories, which can be quickly and efficiently installed into a motor vehicle without being attached to additional seat assembly frame structures.